After 10 Years We Meet!

When you serve God by serving others, you never know how He will use the work He does through you. During the Spring and part of the Summer of 1998, I did some contract writing work for Prison Fellowship Ministries, headquartered in Reston, Virginia. In that connection, I wrote a column series discussing my personal transformation from criminal to contributor. In the first column in the series--Release From Prison Liberates; Truth Frees--I discussed the lessons I learned in my initial efforts to find employment after being released from prison, Dec. 9, 1968. I did not get the first job I applied for because the company practiced an ironclad policy against hiring former criminals, no matter how much he or she had changed. At the second place, I lied about my background, only to discover that this company hired ex-offenders, parolees and probationers, as well as a few men on work release.

I will always remember the chilling conclusion of the personnel professional: "I really wanted to hire you Milton," he said, "but you lied. Now I don't know that I can trust you."

Later, as I analyzed that experience, I concluded that prison release liberates you, or in other words, positions you for change. Become transformed, and you don't return to prison, while limitless possibilities span out ahead of you, revealing a bright and successful future. But you cannot claim that future until you learn the other side of this amazing equation of life: release liberates, but truth frees." From that day forward whenever I applied for a job, I told about my criminal career and prison record first, adding that if this information produced an insoluble problem for the personnel professional, please let me know because "I don't want to waste your time or mine."

I practiced a simple, but powerful rationale for this boldness, a promise that God made to the nation of Judah during its exile in Babylon. God inspired the prophet Jeremiah to write: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jer. 29:11,NIV). I reasoned that since God did not change, and since He is no respecter of persons, that promise applied to me too.

Fortunately, Henry L. Jones who read this column, published in Inside Journal, while relaxing in his prison cell, arrived at the same conclusion. His life has not been the same since.

Released from prison about eight years ago, Henry set out to claim God's promises for him. Today, he's a tremendously successful business owner in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He and his sister operate a medical supplies company. He's an expert foreign currency exchange investor, as well as an accomplished real estate investor. Recently, he launched Mindscape International Learning Center, a tool he uses to help other men and women learn how to maximize their incredible human potential. For example, Henry just helped one of his students buy a $1.3 million mobile home part in Alabama.

Additionally, he recently published a book--Free The Lion Within You----and Henry and I met for the first time during a book release party at the White Oak Planation resort center in Baton Rouge. That was Saturday, Jan. 31. He and I, along with his executive assistant Naiomi Piete, spent Sunday exploring the virtually endless possibilities of this divine appointment.

Neither of us know all what God has in store for us to do together, but we are committed to yielding to the process He has set in place. So after 10 years we meet. What's next? We do not know precisely, but I will keep you posted.